Twisted Metal : Black

Carmageddon 2002?

From Ice Cream truck to ED209...

Whether or not it really was as good as the carnage-obsessed media
of the time determined, Carmageddon was a perversely entertaining
game. It was engaging enough to drag the player through a
ridiculous number of levels - gradually unlocked as the player
improved - before making his collection of vehicles inexplicably
indestructible and ruining any remaining levels he still had to
complete by removing the challenge. Still, it was about as close as
the car combat formula has ever really come to succeeding.
Twisted Metal, Sony's answer to SCi's - if you'll excuse the pun -
killer franchise died a death before it really had a chance to
blossom, slaughtered by a dissonance of feeble revamps which merely
served to underline the PSone's inadequacies and Sony's own
intention: to wring some cash out of Joe Public. Which is why
Twisted Metal : Black comes as such a shock to the system. Stunning
presentation, awe-inspiring vistas and manic gameplay aren't the
half of it. There is a limitless amount of gameplay in this
behemoth of a video game, and it fills the void left by the
devolving Carmageddon series admirably.
Twisted Metal : Black is made up of several gameplay modes, most
notably the single-player story mode which invites you to pick a
character - Street Fighter II style - and battle to the end of
their storyline. You wouldn't necessarily think that a compelling
narrative would be on the cards with characters like Sweet Tooth,
Outlaw and Mr. Grimm and a running theme of wanton destruction, but
for a large part of the time I played TMB I found myself
empathizing with the characters. I have a little brother who enjoys
destroying things, so I can relate to Sweet Tooth's plight. No,
really.

Down and Dirty

Me first! No, me first!

Joking aside though, the simple truth is that the line-up of
characters is so outlandish and varied that you find yourself
wanting to take on new challenges. This is partly thanks to the
game's skills system. Character can be controlled in a number of
preset ways, some relying on the analogue sticks and others
sticking to digital, some mapping weapons to the shoulder buttons
and others to the diamond. For each character though, players can
access a special weapon. For instance, the Junkyard Dog driven by
Bill Ray can hurtle fire and brimstone from its rear-mounted tow
mechanism like a catapult.
Players can also execute a number of special moves, with complex
d-pad manoeuvres unleashing devastating attacks and stunts.
Dropping stuff in the path of a pursuing car is also an option.
Ultimately though, players will learn that skill moves are the most
valuable. Performing a skill move consists of little more than
timing your shot to perfection for maximum effect, but doing so
allows players to reap countless rewards. Not content with simply
allowing players to blow stuff up and using Street Fighter-esque
control mechanics though, Incognito Studios has also strewn
weaponry all over the battlefield. The average rocket pack can be
picked up, and once the player has selected it a little compartment
on the side of his vehicle opens up and a jet fighter-style firing
bracket pops out. A sublime effect, and it varies from character to
character and weapon to weapon.
It's not just the little touches that compel when it comes to TMB
though; it's the big, blatantly obvious gameplay modes. Players can
select Challenge mode, which is effectively the game's Single Race
option, whilst diehards can opt for Endurance, which comprises an
endless series of opponents coming at you, with only your single
car taking any of them on. If you can find a friend worthy of the
carnage though, you're in for a real treat. We're big multiplayer
fans around here, so we tend to say that a lot, but it's doubly
true of TMB. Apart from the standard split-screen deathmatch mode
for between two and four players, there's a Last Man Standing
option (try to guess how that works) and the cutting edge of the
exercise, two-player split-screen co-operative story mode, with one
set of lives for both players. You may sacrifice a few frames per
second, but on a big screen TV the effect and sheer artistry of the
event takes over.

With Character

Ban this sick filth now!

Blowing stuff up might get boring after a while if you found
yourself racing around a primary-coloured Mario-esque paradise,
which is why Incognito have kept their heads and introduced us
instead to a manic, dystopian near-future society where the running
theme is darkness. It resembles some of the sets from Blade Runner
at times.
Using the PlayStation 2 to its fullest, each of the characters'
vehicles is subtly detailed right down to the tiniest moving part,
but this comes at the expense of reasonable damage skins, for which
Incog seem to have opted for the WarCraft II school of thought with
its small-flame-big-flame scheme. Making up for that though is a
motley collection of barren cityscapes in which to 'go at it'. Once
again not settling for the cliché though, Incog have worked
their backsides off and produced a stunning variety of levels which
make Carmageddon's offerings look feeble by comparison. Take for
example the Prison Passage level. Players begin in a jail cell of
all places, and before long it emerges that the cell is on a moving
ship, and before you can lay waste to your entourage of metallic
maestros the ship docks and you're given a whole new playground to
decimate.
Special mention should also be given to the Suburbs level, which is
so incomprehensibly huge I don't think I found everything despite
wasting close to an hour just scouting around. One of the major
aspects of this level is the player's ability to take out a huge
Ferris Wheel, which rolls menacingly into the ocean where it
disappears. And that's another important aspect of TMB; unrivalled
interactivity. You can break everything. From people and vehicles
to buildings and Ferris Wheels, there are a huge number of things
to be broken apart in TMB, and when you send an enemy careering
into something to explosive effect I defy you not to gasp 'cool'!
So apart from anything (and by anything I mean the prevalence of
multi-tiered secret passages and areas, Evil Knievel-choking jumps
and the billion other things that make up a level of TMB) there's
always something to destroy. Pucka.

Madness

Best seat in the house, that

Apart from the level design, I think my favourite aspect of TMB is
a tiny thing; the particle effects. Used to illustrate
rocket-propelled grenades roaring through the air and ash
splintering away from a cascading gaseous fireball, they are truly
a spectacle to behold. Besides that, you cannot help but be amazed
at Incognito's ability to gloss over a logistical nightmare. You
try texturing a PS2 game with landscapes as vast as this and create
the same flea-bitten, smouldering effect they have…
The one thing that might cast doubt on TMB though is the lack of a
60Hz option. This is a wholly bizarre decision on Sony's part, as
our friends across the pond have been shouting from the rooftops
about their oily-smooth framerate for several months now, and given
the delays thrown at TMB (no thanks to September 11th), it's not as
if they didn't have time. Still, finding fault with TMB is
difficult because it's such an awesome, multi-faceted experience of
unparalleled calibre. Even the presentation is mesmerizing. The
character select screen, for instance, has the camera hurtling
around the level to show you the next character, and all of them
appear midway through doing something exquisitely violent. Junkyard
Dog's freeze-frame was taken halfway out of an exploding building,
for instance. Then touched up to look even nicer.
Although not often a problem faced by racing games these days, it
must have been very tricky scoring the accompaniment to Twisted
Metal : Black, but given the tone of this review so far I'm sure it
will come as little surprise to discover that it rocks. Moody isn't
the word. Refusing to play partisan to the pop-metal revolution of
driving games, we're presented with a collection of epic,
soul-destroying tunes as detailed as the game itself, with legions
of stringed instruments and choristers all over the place. It's
probably an acquired taste as far as casual listening goes, but
it's perfect for the game. And completing the package we have the
sound effects. Crashes, cracks, breaks and brakes. It's all there.
And if you hear that tell-tale horn blowing, you know you've found
yourself in the path of Dollface - the trucker behind the wheel of
Darkside, one of the game's most menacing vehicles.

Conclusion

Twisted Metal : Black is epic, and comes thoroughly recommended.
I've barely touched on the basics here, but there are countless
hours of entertainment on offer. Don't expect to finish this in a
week, or even a month. If I haven't convinced you by now you
probably hate driving games. Well do me a favour, at least seek out
the demo and find out if I'm right. I don't think you'll regret it.
And the rest of you have probably already skived off work to go
find a copy. It's amazing how quickly people can develop
work-impeding headaches and stomach bugs headaches these
days…

9
/
10

Read the Eurogamer.net reviews policyTwisted Metal : BlackTom BramwellReview - haven't car combat games been done to death by now? Apparently not, because here we are reviewing one2002-02-26T11:11:00+00:00910